World No 1 Ecclestone looking to take down World No 1 Australia

Sunday's Women's World Cup final sees the globe's top-ranked team up against its top-ranked bowler.

Australia will enter the title game against England as big favourites, with the stats making for stunning reading for the Southern Stars.

They have won 37 of their previous eight 38 one-day internationals, all eight of their games in this tournament, including a 12-run success over England on the opening weekend, and thumping Heather Knight's team 12-4 earlier this year in the multi-format Women's Ashes series.

Meg Lanning's side are without doubt the world's best - but they do not currently have the world's best bowler, both according to the ICC rankings and many onlookers, that honour goes to England.

Left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone has long sat atop the bowling standings in T20I cricket and has now ascended to the top of the ODI charts, too, above Australian counterpart Jess Jonassen, after a sensational World Cup to date - the first game against Australia aside.

On that day in Hamilton, Ecclestone was punished to the tune of 77 runs from a wicketless 10 overs, conceding 11 boundaries, including three in the final over as she bowled to Ellyse Perry.

But Ecclestone has rallied, snaring 20 wickets in seven games since the Australia thumping, with four three-wicket hauls and a superb six-for in the semi-final shellacking of South Africa.

The 22-year-old already has the most wickets by an England bowler at a single World Cup and needs four more in the final to surpass the overall record of 23, attained by Australia's Lynn Fulston during the 1982 event which, like this year's tournament, was also staged in New Zealand.

Ecclestone has lived up to her billing as the game's apex bowler and left Alex Hartley, writing in The